KOCHI: Even though there is a regional office of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) at Thiruvanan-thapuram, there are complaints that its functioning is not effective as the complainants are directed to the AICTE headquarters in New Delhi to give evidence for redressal of their grievances. The complaints are mostly against self-financing engineering and management colleges. There are also complaints that the regional office is ineffective in disciplining the S-F colleges and the ineffectiveness of the AICTE as such in this regard came to the fore in the Toms College issue where AICTE gave extension of approval for the college to run courses in the coming year whereas the Kerala Technological University decided to withdraw affiliation to it.
The teams that inspect S-F colleges too are usually dispatched from Delhi and not the regional office and the way the teams are ‘treated’ by the managements has already become a talk of the town pointing to reasons why Toms got extension of approval. Even KTU which gave affiliation to Toms College was forced to withdraw ot as the three-member fact-finding team found its earlier decision erroneous. “The AICTE is playing a hide and seek game on the issue of taking action against erring self-financing colleges. I had petitioned it on several unethical practices engaged by the Sree Narayana Guru Institute of Science and Technology (SNGIST), North Paravur and no action has been taken on them. They have now summoned me to Delhi to give evidence in one of the cases which is practically very difficult for me and I will have to spare time and spend from my pocket for the same whereas there is a regional office of AICTE in Thiruvananthapuram which can handle such issues. The Human Resources Development Ministry should intervene effectively to discipline AICTE,” said Abhilash C.S., a native of North Paravur.
